A Company story

THE COMPANY STORY: THE “SINGLE MOST POWERFUL WEAPON” IN PREPARING A BUSINESS PLAN

Your story is not something you must acquire. Fortunately or unfortunately for you it already exists. You may or may not like what you hear but you must listen carefully to the signals that tell your story. Not all is lost if your story is less than desirable. You can shape it into anything you wish. You may decide to be creative or allow it to be dull and boring. It may be developed around purpose and passion, or it may evolve from a core of despair. You can be a powerful culture with people who believe in your story. Remember the key to a successful story is that it must be authentic, congruent, and believable. Basically, employees want to believe in their management. They want to come to work every day to excel. People need a cause to believe in and work toward. Leaders in history have known this need and have played it to both good and bad returns for humankind. Hitler understood the need for people to believe in something. As evil as it was he gave them a story. Churchill also had a story, which led his nation out of its darkest hour.

THE THREE REASONS COMPANY STORIES FALL SHORT OF EXPECTATIONS

The company story is a composite of how you represent yourself to employees, customers, and the general public. It is tied closely to your reputation, reinforced by your integrity, and defined by your behavior. Your story is the essence of who you are, what you believe in, and how you act out your character in a business play. Think of your story as if it were presented in a theater. Your story can be a comedy, a tragedy, or a musical. There will be a cast of characters, some good, others not so good, each telling their own version of the story. Most organizations are in trouble because their main characters in the play, the managers, tell stories that don’t hang together. Three problems are associated with their composite company story. First, the story is badly told; second, it is not acted out in a coherent manner; and third, it doesn’t ring true. The sales department is living one story while operations follows a different theme. Finance has its own world while market analysis occupies still another cloud. Is it any wonder employees are confused? They seem to be working for different companies simultaneously, they need to understand the principle of profit. When the Story Pieces Don’t Add Up Failure to virtually link the elements into a coherent plan also contributes to an incomplete story. Because the parts and pieces are not interconnected there is no coordinated, disciplined implementation. It is possible to actually have the elements working against each other. For example, values may






contradict the philosophy. The vision and mission could be disconnected. Principles could be developed that cancel each other. These disconnected behaviors cause customers and employees to hold the company management suspect. They sense something is not right or it is just not working. When the Story Isn’t Believable Another equally fatal flaw in telling a story is to be incongruent. For example, you claim to love customers then treat them badly. You claim to value employees yet they become targets of opportunity for reengineering or downsizing, even in good times. You profess to provide the best products in your industry yet they don’t work as advertised. People are astute and getting smarter. They pick up on the fact you don’t live your own company hype. Your story simply isn’t believable. Consider public awareness of a company’s environmental protection position. Let one incident occur then watch the media have a field day with the inconsistencies. Politicians suffer the same fate when they make public promises they cannot keep. They become inconsistent with their story, telling each special interest group what the group needs to hear.